Custom Ecommerce Development
Ecommerce builds
that earn the click.
Custom ecommerce development on Shopify, WooCommerce, and headless stacks for Australian retailers and B2B businesses where the standard template stops being enough.
Quick answer: the right ecommerce platform depends on your use case. Shopify wins for mid-market retail with strong design and performance needs. WooCommerce wins for content-heavy sites with complex pricing or specific plugin requirements. Headless wins when Core Web Vitals matter competitively or you sell across multiple channels. For most Australian retailers under $5M revenue, standard Shopify with a well-built custom theme is the right call.
What we build
- Shopify and Shopify Plus. Custom themes, theme extensions, integration layers, performance optimisation. Our default for retail-led brands.
- WooCommerce. Custom themes, plugin development, performance work, integrations. The right call when WordPress-ecosystem strengths fit the use case.
- Headless commerce. Shopify backend with a custom frontend (Astro, Next.js) for top-tier performance and design flexibility.
- B2B commerce. Net-terms, customer-specific pricing, approval workflows, account hierarchies — usually on Shopify Plus B2B or BigCommerce B2B.
- Migrations. WooCommerce-to-Shopify, Magento-to-Shopify, custom-to-Shopify. Done with proper data integrity and minimal downtime.
- Operational integrations. Inventory, fulfilment, accounting (Xero, MYOB), CRM, marketing automation. The plumbing that turns ecommerce into a real operation.
For an industry-wide view of where ecommerce platform adoption is heading, Shopify’s enterprise commerce trends and the annual BigCommerce State of B2B reports are useful references for what mid-market and enterprise teams are doing.
When ecommerce templates stop being enough
Most growing ecommerce businesses hit a point where the off-the-shelf theme and standard plugins stop fitting how they want to sell. The signals:
- Core Web Vitals are below your category competitors and conversion is suffering
- The brand wants a level of design polish that Shopify/Woo themes can’t deliver
- Operational workarounds (manual data exports, spreadsheet reconciliation) are eating real staff time
- You’re selling across multiple channels and the platform isn’t set up for it
- Customer-specific pricing or B2B account workflows are required
- The plugin stack has grown past what one operator can sensibly maintain
When two or more of these are true, custom ecommerce work usually pays back fast. Otherwise, sticking with the platform’s defaults is genuinely the right call — we’ll tell you so honestly when it is.
Common questions
Do you build Shopify or WooCommerce stores?
Both. Shopify is the right answer for most retail-led businesses, particularly mid-market brands wanting performance, security, and a managed platform. WooCommerce is the right answer for content-heavy sites, complex variable pricing, or specific WordPress-ecosystem plugin requirements. We choose by use case, not by preference.
What is headless ecommerce?
A pattern where the storefront is built separately from the commerce backend — typically Shopify or BigCommerce as the commerce engine, with a custom frontend (Astro, Next.js, or similar) for performance and design. Headless gives you faster Core Web Vitals, design flexibility, and multi-channel selling at the cost of more architectural complexity.
When should I choose headless over standard Shopify?
When Core Web Vitals are competitively important, when you need design flexibility beyond what Shopify themes allow, when you sell across multiple channels (web, mobile app, kiosks, marketplaces), or when you have a content layer (editorial, education, community) that sits alongside the commerce. For straightforward retail under $5M revenue, standard Shopify is almost always the right call.
How much does custom ecommerce development cost?
Standard Shopify or WooCommerce builds with a custom theme: $5,000–$15,000. A polished Shopify build with deeper integrations and performance work: $15,000–$40,000. A headless commerce build (Shopify backend + custom frontend): $40,000–$150,000+. Migration and complex catalog work adds depending on scope. We always scope phase one tightly so cost is predictable.
Can you migrate from WooCommerce to Shopify?
Yes. WooCommerce-to-Shopify migrations are straightforward in the data sense (products, customers, orders) and harder in the configuration sense (workflows, plugins, customisations). We do these regularly with a 4–8 week timeline depending on catalog complexity and the number of integrations needing rebuild.
Do you handle B2B ecommerce builds?
Yes. B2B ecommerce has different requirements to retail — net terms, customer-specific pricing, account hierarchies, approval workflows, custom catalogs by customer. We build these on Shopify Plus, BigCommerce B2B, or custom-built platforms depending on scale.
How long does an ecommerce project take?
For a polished Shopify build with custom design and integrations: 8–14 weeks typically. Migrations: 4–10 weeks depending on catalog and integration complexity. Headless rebuilds: 12–24 weeks. The timeline includes proper discovery, build, content work, and a deliberate launch window.
Can you integrate ecommerce with our other systems?
Yes — that is most of the work in serious ecommerce projects. Inventory management, accounting (Xero, MYOB), CRM, fulfilment, marketing automation. We do this as proper API integration work via our wider API integration practice rather than relying on flaky Zapier flows.
Let’s build something
The right system,
built once, properly.
If your business is ready to scale beyond what off-the-shelf tools can support — we should talk.